The Worlds I’ve Wondered

Discussions on the History, Flora and Fauna of the Destroyermen World from the perspective of Courtney Bradford.

As time goes by, this is where I will collect the meat and bones of Courtney’s “book,” The Worlds I’ve Wondered, and eventually post it as a separate semi-static category, still subject to editing and addition. Your comments and observations are welcome! I’ll include some of Courtney’s monologues from the series (few of which have ever appeared in the audios) and may expand on them with pics, maps–the works. Or I may add entirely different “chapters.”

“The Worlds I’ve Wondered”

Our History Here

By March 1, 1942, the war “back home” was a nightmare. Hitler was strangling Europe and the Japanese were amok in Pacific. Most immediate, from my perspective as a middle-aged Australian petroleum engineer stranded in Surabaya Java, the Japanese had taken Singapore and Malaysia, destroyed the American Pacific Fleet and neutralized their forces in the Philippines, conquered most of the Dutch East Indies, and were landing on Java. The one-sided Battle of the Java Sea had shredded ABDAFLOAT; a jumble of antiquated American, British, Dutch, and Australian warships united only by the vicissitudes of war. Its destruction left the few surviving ships scrambling to escape the Japanese gantlet, and for most, it was too late.

With a few other refugees, I managed to board the old American destroyer USS Walker, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy. Whether fate, providence, or mere luck intervened, Walker and her sister Mahan, their gallant crews grimly winnowed by combat, were not bound for the same destruction which claimed their consorts in escape. Instead, at the height of a desperate action against the mighty Japanese battlecruiser Amagi, commanded by the relentless Hisashi Kurokawa, they were . . . engulfed by an anomalous force, manifested as a bizarre, powerful, squall–and their battered, leaking, war-torn hulks were somehow swept to another world entirely.

I say “another world” because, though largely geographically similar, there are few additional resemblances. It’s as if whatever cataclysmic event doomed most of the more frightening prehistoric life forms on “our” earth many millions of years ago never occurred, and those terrifying, fascinating creatures endured–sometimes evolving down a wildly different path. We quickly discovered “people,” however, calling themselves “Mi-Anakka.” They are highly intelligent, social folk, with large eyes, fur, and expressive tails. In my ignorance and excitement, I promptly dubbed them “Lemurians” particularly because of a vague, if more feline, resemblance to the giant lemurs of Madagascar. (Growing evidence may confirm they sprang from a parallel line, and only the most distant ancestor connects them to lemurs, but “Lemurians” has stuck). We just as swiftly learned these folk were engaged in an existential struggle with a species commonly called “Grik;”also bipedal, but somewhat “reptilian” with bristly crests and tail plumage, dreadful teeth and claws, and which were clearly descended from the Dromaeosaurids in our fossil record.

Aiding the first group against the second—Captain Reddy never had a choice—we made fast, true friends who needed our technical knowledge and expertise as badly as we needed their support. Conversely, we now also had an implacable enemy bent on devouring all competing life. Many bloody battles ensued while we struggled to help our friends against their far more numerous foes and it was for this reason I sometimes think, when I’m disposed to contemplate “destiny,” that we survived our previous ordeals and somehow came to this place. I don’t know everything about anything, but I do know a little about a lot. The same was true of Captain Reddy and his US Asiatic Fleet sailors. We immediately set about trying to even the odds, but militarizing the generally peaceful Lemurians was no simple task. Still, to paraphrase, the prospect of being eaten tends to focus one’s efforts amazingly, and dire necessity is the mother of industrialization. To this day, I remain amazed by what we accomplished so quickly with so little, especially considering how rapidly and tragically our “brain trust” was consumed by battle.

In the meantime, we discovered other humans—friends and enemies—who joined our cause, required our aid, or posed new threats. Even worse than the Grik, (from a moral perspective, in my opinion), was the vile “Dominion” in South and Central America. A perverse mixture of Incan/Aztecan blood-ritual tyranny with a dash of 17th century Catholicism flavoring the technology brought by those earlier travelers, the Dominion’s aims were similar to the Grik; conquest, of course, but founded on the principle of “convert or die.”

I still believe that, faced with only one of these enemies, we could’ve prevailed rather quickly. Burdened by both, we were unable to concentrate our forces and the war lingered on. To make matters worse, the Grik were aided by the madman Kurokawa who, after losing his Amagi at the Battle of Baalkpan, began to pursue an agenda all his own. And just as we came to the monumental conclusion that not all historical human timelines we encountered exactly mirrored ours, we began to feel the malevolent presence of yet another power centered in the Mediterranean. This “League of Tripoli” was composed of fascist French, Italian, Spanish, and German factions from a “different” 1939 than we remembered, and hadn’t merely “crossed over” with a pair of battle-damaged destroyers, but a powerful task force intended to wrest Egypt—and the Suez Canal—from Great Britain.

We had few open conflicts with the League at first, though they seemed inexplicably intent on subversion. Eventually we discovered their ultimate aim was to aid Kurokawa, the Grik, even the Dominion, just enough to ensure our mutual annihilation, and simultaneously remove multiple threats to the hegemony they craved. But their schemes never reckoned on the valor of our allies or the resolve of Captain Matthew Reddy. Therefore, when their Contre-Amiral Laborde, humiliated by a confrontation, not only sank what was, essentially, a hospital ship with his monstrous dreadnought Savoie, but also took hostages—including Captain Reddy’s pregnant wife—and turned them AND Savoie over to Kurokawa, we were caught horribly off guard. Tensions with the League escalated dramatically, though not enough to risk open hostilities that neither we—nor they—were ready for. (We later learned such had already occurred in the Caribbean, between USS Donaghey and a League DD, and that 2nd Fleet and General Shinya’s force had suffered a setback in the Americas at the hands of the Dominion.) But we had to deal definitively with Kurokawa at last, and do so at once. As powerful as he’d become and with a battleship added to his fleet, we simply couldn’t risk our invasion of Grik Africa with him at our backs.

Captain Reddy conceived a brilliant plan to rescue our friends and destroy Kurokawa once and for all, and in a rare fit of cosmic justice, the operation actually proceeded better than planned, resulting in the removal of one long-standing threat forever, and the capture of Savoie herself. The battle was painfully costly, however, and the forces involved too exhausted and ill-placed to respond when word came that the Grik were on the move. It became clear that all our hopes for victory depended on a heretofore reluctant ally; how quickly we (and Shinya) could repair, reorganize, and rearm; and the insanely, suicidally daring defiance of some very dear friends aboard the old Santa Catalina. . . .

Post navigation

As this world solemnly commemorates the December 7, 1941 and the now distant anniversary of World War II. It only seems fair that when or how-ever you play with holistic time travel that there’s a lot of human political and economic social history, culture and technology that gets mischievously misplaced and suddenly lost in the teleportation-transportation translation business. As one senile old Boomer who can give and bear witness to the numerous temperamental
fits and starts of this chaotic post war era. America’s singular influence and experience is undeniability unique and one that can ever again be successfully replicated or duplicated.

“Son, what you’re complaining about is just the way that life is on the earth.”
“You’ve still got to live in the world whether you like the way its run or not.
You (just) can’t run away from it”….Daniel Gallery’s The Brink

A Pertinent and Relevant Excerpt From:
G Washington to the Continental Army
Farewell Orders Nov 2 1783
“A contemplation of the compleat attainment of the object for which we contended against so formidable a power cannot but inspire us with astonishment and gratitude. The disadvantageous circumstances on our part, under which the war was undertaken, can never be forgotten. The singular interpositions of Providence in our feeble condition were such, as could scarcely escape the attention of the most unobserving;”….
Additional Citations From:
The Press Under a Free Government
Calvin Coolidge
Given before the American Society of Newspaper Editors
Washington, D.C.
January 17, 1925
“It has always been realized, sometimes instinctively, oftentimes expressly, that truth and freedom are inseparable. An absolutism could never rest upon anything save a perverted and distorted view of human relationships and upon false standards set up and maintained by force.”…
“Wealth is the product of industry, ambition, character and untiring effort. In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means the multiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, the widening of culture. Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it. And there never was time when wealth was so generally regarded as a means, or so little regarded as an end, as today.”…

“It is only those who do not understand our people, who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction.”…

An audio post mortem Viet Nam Reminisce, Perspective and Retrospective
Time Warp mp3 Rocky Horror Picture Show Album
God’s own Lunatics mp3 Joe Galloway In the Shadow of the Blade Album
Living in the Shadow mp3 Rodney C Riley In the Shadow of the Blade Album
Circle be Unbroken/Amazing Grace mp3 The Lanny Rose Band In the Shadow of the Blade Album
Apo San Francisco mp3 Jessie Nighthawk
Crazy Old Soldier mp3- Ray Charles

My own Taylor made and inspired selection of supplemental readings, training manuals and assembled reference materials. A R.A. Rough & Reddy somewhat-inclusive Destroyermen’s Pre and Post World War Refresher Course, Primer and Short-Timer’s Reading List. It’s an almost indispensable and invaluable set of
research tools for novice and veteran followers and fans alike.

Galactic Empires Volumes 1-2 by Brian Aldiss
The Shield of Time by Poul Anderson
The Seventh Carrier Series by Peter Albino
The Lost Regiment Series by William R. Forstchen
The Star Carrier Series by Ian Douglas
The Foundation Trilogy, The Stars like Dust by Isaac Asimov
I Robot Anthology and The Naked Sun-The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
The Berserker Wars by Fred Saberhagen
Bolos by Keith Laumer
The Quincunx of Time, Cities in Flight by James Blish
Live Free or Die, Citadel, The Hot Gate by John Ringo
The Star and The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke

Twenty Million Tons Under The Sea by Daniel V. Gallery
U-505 by Daniel V. Gallery
Clear The Decks by Daniel V. Gallery
Now Hear This by Daniel V. Gallery
Stand BY-Y-Y to Start Engines by Daniel V. Gallery
Cap’n Fatso by Daniel V. Gallery
Eight Bells and All’s Well by Daniel V. Gallery
The Brink by Daniel V. Gallery
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge by Calvin Coolidge
Why Coolidge Matters by Charles C. Johnson
Why England Slept by John F. Kennedy
Ship of Ghosts and Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James Hornfischer
A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion
For Patrick O’Brian’s Seafaring Tales by Dean King with
John B Hattendorf and J Worth Estes
The Atlantic Coast by Daniel Ammen -The Navy in the Civil War
The Blockade and the Cruisers by J.R. Soley -The Navy in the Civil War
The Civil War Dictionary by Mark M. Boatner III
Webb Garrison’s Civil War Dictionary by Webb Garrison Sr. & Cheryl Garrison
The U-Boat Wars and The Kamikazes by Edwin P Hoyt
United States Destroyer-Submarine Operations in World War II
By Theodore Roscoe- Naval Institute Press
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo By Captain Ted W. Lawson
BRB Books Random House 1943
The Bluejackets Manual 1940 Naval Institute Press
American Merchant Seaman’s Manual by Felix M. Cornell and Alan C. Hoffman
Action in the South Atlantic by Gerald Reminick
Tall Ships History Comes to Life on the Great Lakes by Kaitlin Morrison

Armistice Day 2018
A day of sorrow and remembrance in memory of all who served
and gave of themselves.
Give due Honor and Respect to both the Fallen and to the
Afflicted living among us.

February 3, 1943.
The Four Chaplains and The Sinking of the U.S.A.T
(United States Army Transport) Dorchester
Ballad of the Four Chaplains mp3· Dead Men’s Hollow
Citations from

Edgar A. Guest “Four Men of God”
Someone many years ago said: “There never was a good war or a bad peace.”
Every war leaves behind the seeds of hatred which eventually lead to bitterer strife. War never grows better; with every new step scientists take, with every new device created, the horror of war increases. The best that can be said for
the struggle to kill and to destroy is that sometimes good comes from it; high examples of the courage of devoted men are set for future generations to remember and to admire. By such incidents great causes are advanced. It was so in World War II. The greatest example of devotion to duty and to the cause of human brotherhood was not set by soldiers or sailors or the brave men of the air force, but by four men of peace.

Oh, there are times when hate and strife stain all that’s best in human life,
When bitterness so fills men’s hearts that hatred seems their trade,
But ‘gainst war’s horror, filth, and crime will shine for all remaining time
The glory of united faiths which four brave men displayed!….

We are not told the prayer they chose,
Since death so swiftly came.
I fancy, though, ‘tis thus it goes:
“Our Father, Who in Heaven art,
Hallowed be Thy name!”….

I would strongly disagree with both of your stated Arguments here, for the following obvious reasons:

1.
Almost all Insertions and arrivals have not quite exactly mirrored or matched our own historical-cultural History time line without some kind of modification taking place.
This, by Taylor’s own stated governing and determinative axiom.
2.
All this being said, what is not a stated documented or referenced part of this
prohibition are the various likely Geographical locations where these historical insertions and arrivals may or may not have occurred.

A Couple of Thoughtful Examples

Implementing and Enforcement – The Treaty of Versailles

21st November 1917
German High Seas Fleet arrives at Rosyth, en-route for internment in Scapa Flow

December 8, 1918
Naval action in the Caspian between British and Bolshevik vessels.

Project B-June and July 1921.
Off the Virginia coast, Billy Mitchell amassed an armada of airplanes as the 1st Provisional Air Brigade and ordered exhaustive bombing practice against anchored captured warships near Langley Field. “The 1st Provisional Air Brigade bombers sank a German destroyer first, followed by an armored light cruiser and then one of the world’s largest war vessels, the German battleship Ostfriesland, followed by the U.S. battleship Alabama–and later the battleships New Jersey and Virginia.”

Scouting and exploring these known Geographic areas just might lead to some surprising unexpected results that could be both beneficial and useful.

Two of the Proteus-class colliers disappeared within the same time period. One was found in BitW as a decomposing hulk. Even if they get to the Caspian, the Allies aren’t really in need of a strategic rust reserve.

Sorry, but if the Union’s well off enough to be recovering 20+ year old BB wrecks halfway around the world, they’re well off enough to be building BBs of their own – and they’d be semi-modern ones like Savoie. The Nassaus were dinosaurs even before WWI.

Justin
I would think that the Salvage and recovery of the Santa Cantalina
or the German Raider Amerika would stir our insatiable need for exploration-curiosity. Look at the treasure trove of tech that
got recovered-salvaged reutilized!

– The 1945 Union can build its own warships rather than searching for them; they find a Liberty ship now, she’s on cargo duty.

– Nothing was gained from Amerika, save meeting the Republic. Contact with other factions is laudable; diverting assets in the middle of a war to look for ships that might not even exist is not. Relax, they’ll come to the Allies.

– For acquiring tech like the P-40s in Catalina, the only useful finds would be WWII-era, and the Allies can’t find those without a crystal ball. Great War wrecks are useless because they’ve rusted through, and because the Allies already have/know everything they’d need from them.

“Almost all Insertions and arrivals have not quite exactly mirrored or matched our own historical-cultural History time line without some kind of modification taking place.
This, by Taylor’s own stated governing and determinative axiom.”

Nah. We knew with any possible accuracy only about a few latest transfers. And we knew about some, that most definitely came from completely other timelines – like Republic Romans, for example, and Chinese. And, albeit indirectly, we knew about transfers from the worlds, where evolution came different way at very early stage – mountain fishes.

One question with the ‘multiverse theory’ of transfers is whether there’s a common direction to all this. Is this world at the end of these transfers, or in the middle? Might transfers go both ways? Imagine a serious squall in which a modern Lemurian fighting ship (say a converted Grik Indiaman that is now a DE) gets blown into another world — and not ours, but something else strange and exotic. Planet of the Apes, where humans are not top dogs? And so on.

Since it has now been established that there have been and are likely to be even more multiple time-history arrivals and insertions. Out of ordinary prudence, necessity and foreknowledge it becomes almost incumbent upon the Alliance to dispatch prepositioning military assets into all known or suspected areas where these insertions and arrivals may occur. An “ounce of prevention” via threat assessment could be likely determinative and instrumental in assuring the survival of the Alliance and by extension Humanity’s existence.

“Out of ordinary prudence, necessity and foreknowledge it becomes almost incumbent upon the Alliance to dispatch prepositioning military assets into all known or suspected areas where these insertions and arrivals may occur. ”

It would basically means the whole planet. And Alliance could not predict when & where the next Squall would took place, nor what exactly could come out of transfers.

No kidding. They’d need a satellite network, and even that would have gaps.

And why Honda Point? Even if Walker’s crew hadn’t brought it up (meaning that it’ll never be seen in TTL), the wrecks are in known Imperial territory – somebody would’ve already found and salvaged the place, and the Union would’ve been told about it.

Taylor
Could you foresee a future joint NUS-Alliance task force and expedition being dispatched and sent to Honda Point, California to search for, salvage and recover and in the end cannibalize much needed and necessary spares parts, stores, armament and equipment from off the 4-Stacker wrecks of DesRon 11 which may have been just in time-history materialized and inserted into the Destroyermen’s World exactly when a wild card is needed most.
CINCAF Alliance Captain Reddy and the crews of both Walker and Mahan were certainly made aware and knew of the historical events of September 8, 1923 and the possible treasure trove of prewar technology that could be employed against The Grik, The Doms, The League of Tripoli and Others.
Another search location for possible time history insertion arrival that may require further investigation would be the USS Batfish (SS-310) museum? in Muskogee, Oklahoma now NUS territory?
It could possibly lead to more Destroyermen novels to come.-Yay!

A lot of interest in this series comes from the “What if …?” questions left by various groups of transferees to the Destroyermen’s world. What if Fascism took hold in France has led to the league. So what would the result be if the A-bomb was not used to end the war with Japan? Here is a book based on plans of both the United States and the Empire of Japan on the Invasion and defense of the Japanese home islands. I’ve seen only one book on this “The Burning Mountain: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan” released in 1983 by Alfred Coppel.

Something that occurred to me driving home today. The NUS have colt style single action black powder revolvers.

They crossed over in the Mexican-American war in the 1840’s. At that point Colt wasn’t the big name we or Reddy’s crew know. Samuel Colt had almost gone out of business when his first models did not sell well. He was saved in a way by Captain Samuel Walker of the US Cavalry. He wanted a revolver powerful enough to kill a horse. Colt obliged and made the Colt Walker revolver. Until the 20th century it was the most powerful hand gun in the world.

Here is the important part. Colt revolvers and revolvers in general were not common or standard issue in the US armed forces in 1847. Walker’s companys were unique in being armed with the weapon. If the ancestors of the NUS have Colt style revolvers that means Walker or some of his men had to be on one of the ships when they crossed over. We know nothing weird happened to them in our time and so far we have no reason to believe in Reddy’s timeline anything else weird happened. That means the NUS have to have come from a different world than ours or the destroyermen.

Could it be the same as Amerika and her crew? Or the League? No way to know really. But the total number of possible alternate universes is growing. Right now I’m counting eleven as the maximum number possible assuming everyone is from a different universe. It may be even higher or some groups may be from the same and the number is smaller.

Possible but the Patterson wasn’t commercially successful and wasn’t a standard issue arm. It’s possible an officer carried one as a personal arm, in that era officers of many nations would purchase their own side arms. But I think its more likely they are based on Walkers because we know the army had them.

That is possible, of course, though Anson’s pistol is described as “large” and equipped with a loading lever. Patersons weren’t large and few were ever equipped with a loading lever. I mention the latter because it’s actually a more telling point. In a land with big dangerous boogers, it would only be natural to “upsize” a Paterson over time, when the means became available, and if that was the primary object of emulation, but the loading lever was a pretty ingenious addition, not necessarily intuitive. I can’t say if the Nussies are from the same universe as us, the D-men, or whatever, but one thing is firmly established: The fundamental conflict that “brought them over” was the same. Time will tell if there were any variables . . .

Historically, any field pieces they may have brought would’ve most likely been M1841 6pdrs, though it’s also possible they had 12pdr gun/howitzers, even 12pdr “mountain” howitzers.
Regarding small arms, even though the vast majority of US troops in the US-Mexican War carried variations on the .69 cal flintlock M1816 Springfield musket, there were rifles on the Mexico City campaign as well, certainly including the US M1817 (also flintlock) but some M1841 rifles (also in .54 cal) as well. The latter, numerous single shot martial pistols, probably the majority of the Hall breechloaders, and any revolvers would’ve utilized the percussion ignition system. Had they come straight down from Taylor’s force in N Mexico, even some of the cannon might’ve employed the percussion Hidden’s lock.
This is an historical background reminder for other things already established: The NUS does not use bored through cylinders or fixed metallic cartridges. Lots of reasons for that, and y’all are free to speculate. And using the landing party off the Congress as a guide, they still rely on muzzle-loading percussion rifles. Aw hell, I’ll shock Don and spill one little tidbit here: the NUS still uses the standard .69 caliber as well. At the time of their arrival, professional officers would’ve been aware of experiments resulting in the 1847 variant of the 1842 Springfield which accurately fires a 750 grain “minie” bullet. Having punched those clean through 500+ pound feral hogs, they strike me as eminently sensible (and credible)missiles for such a hostile world. So yeah, picture their shoulder arms as similar to the rifled 1842 with long range sights. I’m NOT going to settle the Walker/Paterson debate, nor do I specifically address the subject in the upcoming PASS of FIRE since it will not be pertinent. On the other hand, certain other things will become clear enough that careful observers will say “oh yeah! That explains it!” (I LOVE doing that!)

Smith and Wesson introduced the bored through cylinder using cartridges, They also introduced the Volcanic pistol that later became the Winchester rifle. Drawing cartridges to feed the guns is the industrial problem that may keep cap and ball longer, perhaps larger caliber six shooter rifles and shot guns, there were some odd Patterson Colts in this area.

I know you aren’t going to answer it but that sounds like solid evidence to me that they are walker derived revolvers. If they aren’t bored through they are almost certainly colts. IIRC colt didn’t see the point at the time and the engineer who came up with it took his patent to Smith and Wesson which gave them a big advantage when cartridges came around. The lever is also a solid indicator. I wonder if they fixed the level catch.

Having just managed to finish reading the various collected works of Harry Homewood along with your latest Destroyermen Installment with all the influential aid, comfort and assistance of some very much needed and liberated J. Daniels. Taylor, your River of Bones is that timely time traveling wonder and most fortuitous transfer and change of venue (Nothing venued. Nothing gained?). A required and much needed and well deserved R&R Dandelion Break and cultural transfer away from the many attention seeking temper tantrums and self-inflicted perpetual navel gazing that we’re seeping with today.
Again, Taylor Anderson’s River of Bones is a wonderfully fun and thoroughly entertaining and thought provoking read that will addictively excite both novice and the veteran reader and all other active fans and ex-officio followers alike. It’s a very praise worthy affectionate installment, and, a most welcome creative addition to the already history reinterpretation reinvention and constant remaking of the Destroyermen saga with its ever mythmaking retelling of events.
As such, River Of Bones is without any doubt or hesitation another Epoch in the Making and is so very much like the training of incoming friendly and unfriendly fire into a stealth-identified FFZ.
If it’s anything else ; it’s mostly an “I’ll Second that Emotion” perpetual emotion “Pallisades Park” roller coaster machine that’s a “Run Through The Jungle” to the “Promised Land” on the “Road to Kingdom Come” that’s so uncertain in the likely possibility that “It’s only Make Believe” and not Just any old “Marie Christine” “Man O’ War that’s crewed only by “Tow Rope Girls” waiting for the long overdue “Northwest 222”.

Taylor, you old scalawag, sea dog and Stinker!
THANKS for the shout out and call (I Think!???)
It kinda-sorta reminds me of a time way- way back when I wore a dosimeter while flying Jump Seat on a Nuke 35 Lear Jet (Cargo) heading into Chicago MDW.
Can “Harder” wait for your own “Charlie Two- Blankets” character to suddenly appear and give a submariner’s personalized grief and perspective to Dennis Silva his Destroyerman counterpart and/or rival?

From the Oshkosh Me Gosh runways to the Mackinac Island harbor too
Accompanied by an aged vintage concoction of that Good Ol’ Mountain Dew
Costly delayed were my reading of Harry Homewood and “The River of Bones” new

Guys/Gals Everyone
A coveted TDY Assignment would be scheduling and surveying the multiple
Wars-American/Canadian/Mexican battlefields/museums that stretch from
The Great Lakes via Mississippi River to New Orleans. It could be a
prime and charged and ready-made learning lesson for anyone-everyone
Historically interested.
Best Bang for any Buck logistically considered or deerly contemplated, I believe.

A Sweetened Sour Note
ON the OFF-ON, YES-NO Positively-Negatively charged Chance’s Are!?
for a Taylored 14th Destroyermen’s Intineration.
My suggestive musical recommended and nomination up for consideration
Where My Heart Will Take Me mp3
Russell Watson
“Enterprise” Soundtrack Album

Speaking of Canada, Happy Canada Day. Don’t know if we have any Canadian correspondents, but at least it’s a nice day up here in northwest Maine. Benedict Arnold passed through here a few years back on his way to invade Canada, but think they’re over that now, judging by the number of summer visitors we get.

Now that there’s LTAM until Taylor’s ROB actually begins its unrestricted ROE and unrestrained sojourn onto an unsuspecting and illprepared public. Here’s an easy-peasy Sound Barrier Breaking Exercise for you’se all ,we, us? Armchair (No star) Admirals to ping pong over and wargame out while we’re all still Stuck in the Middle, Neutral and in this stasis state of anxious Anticipation to moonshine over Taylor’s much Ballyhooed and Tallyhoed ROB. If any of you’se Guys or Dolls
way, way out there were to try to freely associate, attach or bondo any one song or piece of music that best describes Mr. Anderson’s Destroyermen Series in musical form what would it be? And could you also do the same for each of his thirteen epoch making books?
Ping out your recommendations, suggestions!

As an Example:
For Taylor’s Destroyermen Series my own Knock, Knock Knockin’ on Heaven’s
(Help Us!)Doors nomination and sub/mission would be:

‘Fraid I’m not familiar with the guy. I’ll check it out. As for cool music, I don’t remember anybody mentioning the soundtrack to Victory at Sea. Also, my “interpretation” of Berlioz’s “March to the Scaffold” from his Symphony Fantastique puts me more in mind of linear combat (and flying artillery) than anything. I’m sure some will “Cry Heretic!” over that…

Are you sure Glen/ I mean Taylor?(Sorry!)
Another related topical recording and a Timeline Aerial Tribute should go to Eddie Rickenbacker and “The Hat in the Ring” Squadron
Prop up-“Top Hat Bar and Grill”- Jim Croce

From Roylance: Tall Ships Suite, Ocean Fantasia, Voyager
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Classically I kinda veer towards “Voyager” as a personal preference.
Also The Great Gate at Kiev/Pictures at an Exhibition/Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9
works for me as well

Ditto. I depend on a 400′ line coming in off a rural road. Does not stop teledemons. I don’t have voicemail (I don’t want ANY damn land phone calls), just a local connection in case I need to call 911 to have the local boys come to save the foundation in case of fire, or the EMT’s for that hour ride to the nearest hospital. Internet sometimes cannot find itself (has it tried GPS?)

Great Balls of Fire (Brimstone added only upon Request)!
Now there’s less than a month to go til ROB finally materializes.
Honestly Sincere mp3

Curiosity may have killed off the worshipped and extinct nine-lived KAT,
Turning the Auto Pilot to off has manually gotten Humanity to where it’s finally now at.

There’s been an awful lot of Troubling water that has crashed, cascaded and suddenly flowed both over and under The Bridge and the Texas Deck since you first press ganged and willingly Shanghaied? many of us your avid readers to crew aboard and make this Seepingly timeless collective mutual voyage that had initially begun with INTO THE STORM then leading steadfastly exhortingly towards tomorrows RIVER OF BONES and whatever other PORTS of CALL that just might Lei just beyond the horizon.
Twelve books in passing and I remain unremarkably still full of unmeasured unrestrained curiosity and am constantly amazed and made stricken with unfettered wonder knowing that there are still a DOM LOT more manuscriptly Great Expectations that just might be coming into event making fruition.
Inserting Humanity’s unquantifiable influence and presence into an unknown world originally completely devoid of it, is quite the literary accomplishment. But, thereafter to create, sustain, maintain and nurture such a legendary world that is in a flummoxed state of being continuously reformulated, redone and remade and reworked as you had originally conceptualized and designed it to be is also quite the epoch making mythological achievement.
All of this is just occurring, even after paradoxically reading that most recent of exceptional and enigmatic of your postings and snippets taken from ROB. Only you could’ve captained and have expertly baited the hook, cast the nets upon the water and have once again patiently and deliberately lured, ensnared, entrapped and clandestinely cajoled and caught us completely and totally unawares and off guard. And, as is so oftentimes the case, circumstances find us all inadequately and unexpectedly unprepared and unsuspecting. Confusion reigns supreme and entertains us all as Yeti another volley of zig-zag course corrections are made with a LOT of manufactured smoke screen overladen and awash by an over-abundance of misdirected tease and not very much sympathy.
To question and attempt to fully fathom, rethink and understand the true depths
and the nature of our own frail and pronounced humaneness and humanity.
What a measured and a profound thought provoking legacy to pass along to others.
Taylor, You’ve certainly come such a long way in such a very short time, Old Man!

Let us not cry over spilled AVGAS and blown manhole covers!
Pulitzer, of course, is always in the hands of the Prize owner or
so they say.
We old fuddy duddies do have this necessary bonding need
to stand together, even when one of us is always half right and
the other is seemingly always half wrong.
My, but isn’t this a Tom Kat Terrific way to get far ahead of the word game, plant the flag (48 Stars) and mark those territorial boundaries of
what is obviously considered permissible Expletive Free reviewable commentary about uncensored content and unspecified context.
Semper Paratus!

Point to ponder. We have multiple human cross overs from various times & timelines, why haven’t we seen some Grik or Lemurian cross overs? Granted the mechanism may be attracted to metals, but both have been metal users for some time. If we posit that it has to be a large concentration of metal, then how did the Chinese & Romans cross over? Assuming they came by ship (given their location) at the time their metals would have been primarily hand weapons & some armor, similar to the Grik & Cats.

Some ‘Cats MAY have “crossed over.” Consider that ‘Cats have a relatively short written history, and remember the still somewhat mysterious origins of Svec’s ‘Cat legionaries. Also, small-scale Lemurian crossovers wouldn’t be any more likely to survive than human, and some may have been absorbed over time by people who took them in. Just a thought.

OVERLORDED towards commemorating the European Theatre side of the ledger,
let’s also not forget me not and “Abandon Ship!” or scuttle the importance and
Significance that MIDWAY had also played on this historical of days -June 4-5-6-7, 1942 and June 6, 1944.
So, unlimber your “Is- Was” and check out the following links that will test the depth charges of your knowledge and understanding of World War II History.
So for a Jolly Roger good olde “Splice the Main Brace.”, “Pat on the Back” and “Atta Boy”Board and Inspect the following sites that seek to memorialize this history.https://www.stlmag.com/The-Butch-OHare-Story/

Inquiry
Taylor, Will you be doing a ROB Book Signing Tour?
Would you also be scheduling any of such events at any of
the World War II Ship Museums like the USS Intrepid, USS Silversides,
U-505, LST 393, USS Hazard (AM-240), USS Kidd (DD-661),
USS Stewart (DE-238) and USS Laffey (DD-724).
Would be fantastic and memorable way to promote World War II History!!!

Very good Joe. As for appearances, I have not been informed by the publisher’s publicist that anything at all has been scheduled and assume (like the last several years) that it won’t be. As traditional publishers struggle to cope with rapid changes to the industry, they seem to focus more on the importance of the author–particularly established authors with an existing “fan base”–doing his or her own publicity, principally through social media or maybe Con appearances. That costs them nothing in time or effort, after all. They will support venues that ASK for my appearance, yet have discouraged me from encouraging such venues to ask for me!!??? I remain mystified by that and can only speculate on the reason. That said, I’ll consider appearing at ANY venue that requests me, on my own hook, if it can arrange a big enough turnout–or coordinate with other venues in a particular area. For example, even if there was no “huge turnout” venue available, if somebody got a museum, a bookstore, a military base, etc. all within driving distance of each other to request my appearance and coordinate a schedule . . . pretty much anywhere in the lower 48 . . . I’d be happy to go. And if they could coordinate with other venues “on the way,” I’d gladly drive myself and make a trip of it. I try to make one or two “Cons” a year, but I’m no “Con Junkie.” I enjoy them if I’m busy, meeting people and sitting on panels, but if I don’t have a lot of panels, I get bored and start thinking “I really could be writing right now instead of this.” Make sense? I may–as I often do–visit some ship somewhere this summer, and post it on the Facebook page to tell folks I’ll be there, but those are often spur of the moment things and don’t leave me or anyone else much time to prepare for them. If those ship museums wanted to coordinate something with me and plan something a little farther in advance so more people could come, that would be swell.

Taylor
I’m somewhat overwhelmed speechless and flabbergasted!
Especially as this culture enters into this so called new era of
Bootstrap Capitalistic Meritocracy.
Maybe you need to have a “Little Talk” about mutual responsibilities,
obligations and revenue sharing with your penny pinching publicist/bookings
agent.
The revenue generating creativity and talent that makes up your intellectual
property is Quixotically worth far much more than zero.
The time’s they are a’changing!

Enthusiasm aside, let’s not impulsively venue into areas
that might just lead to reserved permanent housing at Leavenworth, Marion,GITMO or even Al(KAT)raz.
Let’s be more conventional in planning, logistics.

Everyone:
More Post Graduate Destroyermen History Lessons of an Audio Kind
to demonstrate your mastery and Hi-Fi(ve) and fine tune the Stereo
Depths of your historical knowledge via the
Mystic Sea Festival June 8-9-10. A real sonar buoy of an event to
make Merrimac and Monitor!!!

Well I have an idea. Find a cruise ship that is touring all the bases the US Navy got in exchange for their 50 4-stackers and have a winter ‘book cruise’. Start in Texas, of course, so you can deliver a lecture on the Republic of Texas Navy…

A Destroyerman’s Treatise and post graduate seminar on Blue and Brown Water Humor
No expletive deletions, no swear jar penalties, just the leading edge, the tasteful and the funny!
Showing all knock off imitators how it’s done
Laughter rest assured.

“Carry on,” said Fatso. “You know,” he remarked to Scuttlebutt,
“If I had thought of it in time I would of Fired Twenty-Two- like old Joe Fife
did one time.”
“I’ve heard a lot of stories about Joe Fife-but not that one,” replied Scuttlebutt.”
“Joe’s ship came in to Plymouth, England, for Queen Victoria’s jubilee, and the dopey gunner lost count and fired twenty-two guns.”
“When the Admiral asked him what the hell was the idea, old Joe said.”
“Twenty-one guns for Queen Victoria and one for Joe Fife!”…..

“With her big blue eyes and that red ribbon in her hair she reminded me
of Little Red Riding Hood,” observed Jughaid.
“She’s a WAAC in the Israeli Army Reserve and an expert pistol shot.”
“She’s got as many medals for pistol shooting as old Shaky Stokes. And she’s a top sergeant, too.” Her husband was a private in the army.”
“Boy oh boy,” said the Professor. “just imagine being a private in the army and coming home every night to a cute dish like that!”
“Yeah!” agreed Scuttlebutt. “And doing what privates are always saying oughta be done to sergeants.”
“Her husband was killed, I suppose?” asked Ginsberg.”
“No not exactly,” said Jughaid.” “I asked her what did he die of, and she said he had very bad luck.” “Died of gonorrhea.”
“Gonorrhea!” whooped all hands incredulously.
“Hell- that ain’t a fatal disease,” said the Professor.
“That’s what I told her,” said Jughaid.
“She said, ‘Hunh!’…. “When you give it to me , it is.”…….

“Here we go again,” said the Admiral. “This reminds me of the conferences we
used to have in my cabin on the Guadalcanal when you got involved in high crimes and misdemeanors…all right, let’s have it. What kind of skullduggery are you mixed up in now?”
“Right now, in nothing, sir.” “But we really belong to the Alamo”
“So-why don’t you rejoin her?”
“The trouble is she’s out in Vietnam.”
“Vietnam?” said the Admiral. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“She went off and left me.”…….

“Son, what you’re complaining about is just the way that life is on the earth.”
“You’ve still got to live in the world whether you like the way its run or not.
You (just) can’t run away from it”….Daniel Gallery’s The Brink

I was thinking about the difference between our world and the destroyer men world. Where we are not able to really see the crater from the 66 million year old asteroid strike in our world. This makes me think that the gap a fire is not a meteorite strike, but instead is a Super Volcano explosion. What does everyone else think. Previously I had been thinking that the gap of fire was the meteorite strikes moving but now that I look at our own world I realized that is probably not the case due to the above comment. The Super Bowl Aquino could even be the cars of the Mini ice age that they are in triggering it at the right time Cooling off the destroy-man’s world.

A Memorial Day of Reflection and Remembrance
Mourning and grieving the untimely passing of family, friends and colleagues
for a future molded by their unselfish sacrifice and commitment to a cause.
Requiescat in pace Pathfinders all.

Contemplations from “The Brink”
Dan Gallery
Doubleday and Company
Garden City New York 1968

“Well Commander,” said the Doctor, “you’re sort of overstating things a bit, aren’t you? This world of ours is just a speck of dust in the whole scheme of things.”
“Even if we blow it to smithereens with an atomic blast, I doubt if people on the
nearest star would even notice it.”…
“You think there is a bigger scheme of things, then- do you Doctor?”
“Yes. I belong to the old-fashioned school who think if you go back far enough, you find God behind it all.”
“I don’t see how anyone could look out at the stars every night as you do and not believe in God,” said Banks.”
“But if a great all wise God did allow it, how do you explain the ungodly mess we’ve got here on earth now? Why does He even tolerate man?”
“I don’t think He pays any attention to what man does down here, said the Doctor.”
“He put all we need here on earth for man to use. He gave man a brain to figure out how he ought to use it… And now, we can do as we damn please with it.”
“You’re getting way out of my field, now Commander,” added the Doctor.
“I’m just an astronomer. I can tell you what the stars and the planets will do for the next couple of hundred years. But only God knows what man will!”….

Another suggested Destroyermen reading for a Memorial Day Weekend
FINAL HARBOR
Harry Homewood
Mcgraw Hill New York 1980

“Maco” sure to include this stem to sternwinder of a nautical tale about
The AB basics and fundamentals of the US Silent Service in WW II as part of
any required or assigned reading list.
It’s topnotch right up there in same category of an absolute read as is
Run Silent, Run Deep by Commander Edward L. Beach Jr.
Henry Holt & Co. 1955

Alexey brought up a good point on the Assn. Page. With species variation will camouflage work. We see this in hunting patterns in Hunter Orange that work on color blind deer, but help prevent hunting accidents. So what are your thoughts?

Like Alexey said most of the dino derived bird species have four color receptors in stead of our three. Our “black & white” dazzle paint may be the equivalent of painting our ships violet, green & red (or pink). Whether the DDmen think to ask is the key question. We knew about human color blindness, but I don’t know if color blindness or Tetrachromacy in other species was discovered by then. We have Larry, the Konishii, Geerki & other Grik workers to check with though. They may tell us they were wondering why we paint our ships such garish colors.

Colors aren’t nearly as important as breaking up outlines, something dazzle schemes are primarily concerned with. This is obvious when you see some of the really weird and often very high visibility dazzle colors that have been used.

On ships dazzle camo was primarily intended to make it difficult to use split image or coincidence range finders or stadia type range finders by making it difficult to know the speed, length or height of the ship. Hopefully this would result in a miscalculation of the range or speed and the fired ordnance would miss. It wasn’t intended to make the ship less visible. Radar made dazzle camo irrelevant.

While colors are secondary to breaking up a ships profile & making it difficult to target, estimate speed, size & even direction of travel, I don’t think they should be discounted completely. While there were some out there colors used, the primaries were what might make the ship blend into the sea scape at a distance. Most color schemes used black, white & shades of greys, blues & greens, all colors related to the sea or sky. Reds, pinks or oranges (or ultra violet colors in the case of the Griks) will make the ship stand out at a distance. The dazzle part may make it harder to target, but it will be unable to avoid detection at range. It would stand out like a turd in a swimming pool.

For all we know some of the paints being used may even be fluorescent in the UV spectrum available to the Grik. The DDmen’s ships could be running around with the equivalent of neon lights all over them.

Crap. I just took over an hour to write a long dissertation on camo color and vision etc. and since my computer just “updated” it got blown away! No time to rewrite it today, but rest assured it was brilliant!

Actually, Taylor, your dissertation should be in a temp file somewhere. Maybe not all of it, but most. Check your word processor program for Options, or Preferences & try to find the location for Auto Saving documents. If your Auto Save is on (usually the default setting), you can find it there.

I usually shoot my laptops when they get like this, to put them out of my misery, but it’s getting harder and harder to FIND laptops the size I like over the last couple of years. What’s with that? I guess everybody’s going to notebooks and such, but I’d have to adapt to a whole different physical writing style to accommodate one of those–and right in the middle of a book is NOT the time for such a change!

Back up daily or when you need a break on a disk or outside hard drive That way if it goes tits up you loose only a day’s work, and have an good excuse to turn the air blue or load up a cannon a blow something up. The old excuse “The dog ate my homework.” does not go over well, but professors are more sympathetic to “The computer ate my homework.”

What you could do, Mr. Anderson, is buy a number of laptops of a style/size you like all at once, and then use those one after another for a while. Or you can get like a separate keyboard you plug into a newer laptop or something.

You laptop may need a cleanup. After repeated updates, there are a lot of temp files, the OS starts to get fragmented etc. Try a disk, cleanup & then defrag it & see what happens. I agree with Charles though, saving work to a thumb drive will help if it truly craps the sheets.
If I plan on a large comment, I usually do it in Word, so I can see the whole thing & not be scrolling up & down trying to fix mistakes or reword something for clarity. Then select, copy & paste here. Just as often though, a short comment snowballs into an avalanche of words.

As I recall you had to be signed in as Taylor Andersons to have your old icon for some reason. Try signing in your next comment with the ‘s’ added to the end. Always remember to err is human to really F#%& up requires the Computer.

Interesting but just went back to see what booger the system gave me when i used the wrong name on my cell and what do i see but the same old booger as i have now. i did see that Anderson had a different booger in a few posts though so possibly it was moderated .
I was also wondering if the search feature here works for anyone. Taylor told me how to use it but it fails for me every time.

Governors of Our Behavior
Law Day was quietly celebrated yesterday May 1. Though largely overlooked and displaced as it was by conduct and acts unbecoming and so unworthy a representation of our species.
Law is that artificial constructed instrument that gives our species its unique identity and identification and standing over all others.
May we continue to be worthy of this our heritage.

“But as some good men are always found in a multitude however bad, to them
we hold some esteem: for good men hold no private animosities in a Public Cause”
-Allan Gardiner
Hunting the Essex -Allen Gardiner , Seaforth Publishing

For all of you Destroyermen Dockwhollopers waiting for ROB
In the aftermath of Essex get the low Downes of some very fantastic
exploits lost in history whereabouts somewhat forgotten and unknown.
A LOT of Nemesis out there?
Reference- The Shining Sea by George C. Daughan
Basic Books, New York
Unanswered
Where is the USS Epervier now?
What about the USS Potomac and the amphibious landings
at Quallah Battoohttps://www.revolvy.com/topic/John%20Downes%20(naval%20officer)&item_type=topic

Going to slide away from the technical side for a while, and ponder what other ‘transfers’ would liven up D-World? It’s got to be 1945 or prior level of development, but if it’s not from ‘our’ world, I suppose it puts it up for grabs. It’s going to be harder to find transfers from ‘our’ world that would not have been recorded, they’d have to be ‘missing’.

Maybe Halik runs into a group transferred during the later 19th century (so they would have some people that understand technology and English) in the process of being subjugated by the LOT. Can’t have all the transfers go to the Union.

But let’s NOT find Amelia Earhart living on some mid-Pacific isle. Although a group from a tramp freighter bound for New Caledonia escaping WW2 would be different. Nice to have some ‘good’ Frenchmen.

Not as pleasant would be finding a group on the West African coast from a Nazi blockade runner, who would wholeheartedly accept the LOT (but plot to take it over) and provide them a base as well as high-grade ores and rubber from the Far East.

Maybe a group of Brazilians, not discovered by anyone. Transferred from a world where a Bolivar type united South America under a Catholic banner.

OK, yes, I left out the Canadians as a possible enemy for the Nussies. Maybe New York is the capital of a new Evil Empire.

Actually there were a lot of ships in “OUR” world that would have been canceled during construction or renamed after launch to celebrate new hero’s. Just pick and chose. They even changed the names of some ships to open up a name such as the USS Midway, CVE-63, which was changed to the USS Saint Lo in September 1944 to open up the name for a new class on carriers and the USS Midway CVB41.

Or as with Antunez, they could just be the same ships but with different names and histories. It’s possible (if not probable) that they’d get the Indianapolis from a timeline where she was built as USS Orlando.

What would we see if the world war had not ended when it did on another world, or if it had started sooner. What is to say that the ships being transferred would not be of considerable greater capability than what we are used to. imagine if a carrier of the capability of even CV41 The midway were to have been built 5 to 6 years sooner. of jets were developed 10 years sooner due to a continual war footing on an unknown world. you might not want to have these come through at all

Dispatches From the A&P:
Recent observations and reports of strange unidentifiable aircraft flying?
have been largely substantially and verified by local officials and are
coming in tandem with a variety of other highly regarded and reputable
reporting sources including those from coast watchers, local Civil Defense
air raid wardens, NORAD and The Space Command. This does strongly suggest
another portal insertion-extraction is or may be forthcoming or imminent (July?). Precautionary measures; including ordered activation of all Star Wars ABM assets at Area 51 may be required and necessary to be taken since the last of such similar and most recent of events has led directly to:
Changing weather patterns suggesting another looming Ice Age coming together with simultaneous Global Planetary Warming.
Disturbing changes in both migratory bird and animal patterns.
Dyna Soars being in confused state and don’t know where to go
Materialization of multiple Elvis impersonators and clones
Numerous sightings of Amelia Earhart
Wrong Way Corrigan Landing Right
Skylab and Skylab Jr. not falling out of orbit to disintegrate into the Earth’s Atmosphere
Flat Earth Society being proven right. Anchor and Secure those tethers before you all fall over the edge!
Evil Knievil really did successfully make it across the Snake River Canyon in 74
Columbus did discover America in the Far East
UFO’s Oh? Really! do exist and are based and housed out of Areas 1 to50
Secondarily; numerous modifications and adjustments are subtlety being made to our civilization’s historical record.
Those already having been recently discovered and known about including such publicly known and insignificant ones as:
Benedict Arnold successfully having seized Quebec Canada
during the Revolutionary War. Canada, thus becoming one of the original 14 States of the Union and a signatory of The Declaration of Independence and an important ratifier of the US Constitution
Lewis and Clark did find the Northwest Passage
People unable or cannot “Remember the Maine”
Since the details on a BB USS Maine ACR-1 which did not blow up in Havana Harbor, Cuba not available
The Alamo, Goliad and Fort Sumpter successfully reinforced relieved and resupplied and their sieges successfully broken.
Abner Doubleday didn’t invent baseball and The Cubs did win the pennant in 69.
Let’s Play 2- Go Cubs Go!

Jeez, Joe, sounds like a wild alt-might party! Up Spirits, all! Although having hockey as the national sport might be a bit different.
“Oh, somewhere the ice is racing-faat, the back meat sizzles hot, but there is no joy in Winnipeg when Mighty Casey fans his shot.”

Steve
All I can say in reply is:
Better start brushing up on speaking Canadianese
with or without French accents.
And of course, you already should know by now that
basic fundamental concepts like crossing the Equator,
the International Date Line and the Gregorian (As was superceded
and replaced by the Taylorian) Calandar will only works in
this historical timeline.

Eh, you got dat right, you! Good friend of mine in Maine was French-Canadian and always coming up with new expressions; keep your eye on the 8-ball and so forth. My favorite was when he took his wife to Montreal, came back and told me, “It’s so beautiful, it’s like another country.” Gotta love those Canadians, French or not.

Steve
I’m still having trouble and difficulty interpreting and generally understanding the dialect and the spoken language which has been and is now prevalent throughout Chicago’s South Side.
It’s the Kat’s Meow.!? and Oui? Vey!!!

Here’s some tailored oversights, contrarian clarifications and unexpected explanations for youse all to wax poetic with.
More questions for the RoB to answer in July??.
As for the “NUS”-“anced” American Clan of 1847 almost all of it’s foreign & diplomatic, economic & trade and military relations and relationships and the policies that they had in actuality developed, implemented and fostered had been and is concurrently being conducted on an “as needed” , “necessary” and “whatever it takes” to maintain survival driven crackerjack philosophy.
The very formulation and making of their adopted Foreign and Military policy “on the fly” and from a constant reinforcement state of actively “learning by doing” is Quixotically quite the remarkable accomplishment and achievement for all Destroyersmen
scholars to evaluate…
It is also of necessity to keep in mind that most noteworthy of contradictory and glaringly historical of contrarian reminders:
There were? no veteran or experienced (military-political-economic) Leaders to draw counsel, seek advice or to rely upon since the US Civil War Timeline (circa 1860-1865) was not in any part of THEIR actual original timline history, experience and/or culture.
Futuremore; this is just what can UNTIMEY happen to Events
when almost 13 years of significant historical importance and
past-future memory is suddenly made lost in the transition and is reformulated, remanufactured and remade in a fashion almost unrecognizable and unrealized given their current present state of existence (The Einsteinian repackaging equivalent of the pounding of a round dark matter peg into a square black worm hole).
It tin candidly must? then follow that if there is no occurrence of The American Civil War then Abner Doubleday’s invention of baseball could not have possibly taken place.
Softball questions all.
Good Grief!!! Where’s Lucy!!!?
Aspirins Anyone??!

I say; not much longer, unless the oxygen content in atmosphere is WAY higher. You see, insects are passive breathers; the oxygen is delivered into their body by direct diffusion from air, through the system of ventilation holes and channels. Problem is, this system limit the insect size very strictly; anything mora than a dozen centimeters, and the air would not be able to reach internal parts fast enough.

…How for Darvins sake they could even breath in anytging like earth-like atmosphere? Not to mention that exosckeleton of insects isnt exactly well-scallable; the problems with weight distribution would crush the mantis even on 1-foot size stage.

Somewhere (other planet or AU) there could conceivably be large insectoid types, but they would have had to evolve or have engineered by some lunatic:
1. A more efficient body oxygenation system, something similar to lungs & a circulatory system to oxygenate the entire body. (related to #2)
2. A way around the current exoskeletal joint restriction, which prevents growth past a certain size in relation to the O2 percentage in the atmosphere. (We had some bodacious insects & arthropods when Earth’s O2 percentages were higher)
3. A means of reinforcing the exoskeleton to sustain the mass of a larger body, without restricting it’s growth.
A fix for 2 & 3 might be related. The exoskeleton could have gaps allowing growth, including the joints which could be covered in front & the sides & open at the rear to allow growth & flexibility. As they grow, they molt & grow a new, larger shell (a dangerous time of life for them). For additional structural support as they get larger the inner part of the exoskeleton could develop “ridges” for additional stiffness & larger muscle & tendon attachments. If we want really large types, the engineer (lunatic that he/she is) could add internal semi-skeletal structures, either related to the exoskeleton in composition or something like cartilage.

The internal structures would be fairly small secondary affairs & just there to provide any extra needed support for the organs & it would only be for larger types. The exo would still be the primary support structure. Of course you still eventually get to physical limits fairly quickly, especially for a predator type that needs to be fast.

Now that The Coral Sea Lady Lex been rediscovered and
found off Australia
There’s another Ghost story that should also be read
to memorialize not only this historic occasion but also
the upcoming Doolittle Raid commemoration that’s on April 18.

Though scattered thy sons o’er leagues of empire’s
rim,
Alien, remote, by severing wind and tide ;—
Yet every Briton who knows thy blood in him
In that dread hour will marshal to thy side:—
And if thou crumblest earth’s whole frame will groan.
God help this world, thou wilt not sink alone!
—-From “The Collected Poems of Wilfred Campbell.’

For your enjoyment and further contemplation and consideration
there’s the unexplained and mysterious tale:
An Anchor in the Graveyard by C.H.J. Snider

Excerpts

“Here, this won’t do!” I told myself. “You think of broadsides and then smell powder smoke. Wake up!”
I walked to the scuttle butt, dipped a mug of water, and drank it to freshen my brain.
Then, distinct from the resonance of the Windlass brake or the toll of the buoy, I heard the faint tinkle as of “three bells” striking—ding-ding! ding!—half past one. We had no automatic striker aboard the schooner. The sound was repeated, blurred and faint, as though we were in the midst of an unseen fleet.
Looking up from my drink, I saw something which brought my heart to my mouth. Abeam of us was a vessel—a full-rigged ship, under all sail, with studdingsails out. My first impulse was to call all hands, but I choked down the cry. This was no ordinary one of the ships that pass in the night. She was square rigged on all three masts; and the last square-rigger vanished from the lakes when I was sailing toy boats in puddles. She had “single” topsails, that is, they were each in one great square of canvas, a rig which became obsolete fifty years ago. She had a spritsail, swinging from the bowsprit, a sail that has not been seen for a century, and her side was broken by a long line of open ports.
But what convinced me above all that this was some trick of my brain and not a real vessel was the way she seemed to be sailing in the sky, making good progress in a breeze so light that we had lost steerage way. As I said, the water, even alongside, was invisible; but she seemed to be floating in the air, above the horizon. Another thing which proved her unreal was the very clearness of every detail in a fog which smothered our sight of our own crosstrees. She radiated a light which illuminated her without casting a shadow. At each port a brightness—perhaps a gunner’s match—— was glowing. Great horn lanterns pulsed like rising moons at each corner of the taifrail that ended her short high poop. Other lanterns, strung fore and aft, lighted up crowds of men, clustered around the guns, thronging the gangaways, manning the yards and fighting-tops.
I could see, as plainly as in summer twilight, the colors of her Stars and Stripes, rippling in a fresh breeze, at her mizzengatf end, and a long, twisted streamer, blowing off from her maintruck. And I could see colored signal lights, blue and white and red, rise and sink on invisible halliards.
She swept by, but a thin, black, curved line vibrated in her place, and moved in the direction she had passed, and in a moment there showed at the end of it, a squat little schooner, with an enormous cannon amidships and spars which raked till the maintruck overhung the taffrail.”…

Guys
Very inciteful and cogent are all of the observations/analysis made concerning
the nature and scope of what an agenda driven alliance the Lot seems to be.
Its competing clash of cultures seems to be governing and dominating its top down
committee style decision making process. (Organizational petrification/paralysis?)
Should be of immense aid and help to everyone when Taylor’s ROB is finally released.

“Because sometimes there aren’t any good choices.”
“Sometimes you have to choose between something
(Really!?) bad, and something worse.”-
A citation from The Seventh Angel, Jeff Edwards
Stealth Books

“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. ” -G. Washington – Farewell Address

From -The Lost War-Sloop
by Edna Dean Proctor

Oh, the woeful, woeful ending
Of the pride of Portsmouth water!
Never more to harbor nor to shore came she
Springs returned but brought no tidings;
Mothers, maidens, broken-hearted,
Wept the gallant lads that sailed away in glee.

Did the bolts of heaven blast her?
Did the hurricanes o’erwhelm her
With her starry banner and her tall masts three?
Was a pirate-fleet her captor?
Did she drift to polar oceans?
Who shall tell the awful secret of the sea!

Who shall tell? yet many a sailor
In his watch at dawn or midnight,
When the wind is wildest and the black waves moan,
Sees a stanch three-master looming;
Hears the hurried call to quarters,
The drum’s quick beat and the bugle fiercely blown; —

Presidents Day having come and gone, it struck me that the perfect analogy for the Squall is a furniture store with lots of portals between rooms. Plenty of different types of furnture, but no elevators to boost you ahead a few floors.

Couldn’t find an analogy in new car sales, the other feature of Presidents Day. Other than the fact that most new cars look alike, sort of like four-wheeled biscotti.

Abe Lincoln Went to Washington mp3
– Lincoln and Liberty Album/
Lost Radio Rounders

As the President’s Day holiday is celebrated anew
and we in our childlike awe solemnly commemorate
the lives, the legacies and the meaning today of both
Presidents G. Washington and A. Lincoln.
A most appropriate and almost forgotten and timeless
Poem to restir a faltering heart and comfort one’s soul
suddenly comes to mind…
Celebrating the holiday

“Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.”

General Order Number 3
“One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:
“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”
“The celebration of June 19th was coined “Juneteenth” and grew with more participation from descendants. The Juneteenth celebration was a time for reassuring each other, for praying and for gathering remaining family members. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former slaves and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date.”
“Juneteenth Festivities and Food”
“A range of activities were provided to entertain the masses, many of which continue in tradition today. Rodeos, fishing, barbecuing and baseball are just a few of the typical Juneteenth activities you may witness today. Juneteenth almost always focused on education and self- improvement”….

Excerpts from:
To The American People
by Bayard Taylor

“Throughout the Land there goes a cry:
A sudden splendor fills the sky:
From every hill the banners burst,
Like buds by April breezes nurst;
In every hamlet, home and mart,
The fire-beat of a single heart
Keeps time to strains whose pulses mix
Our blood with that of Seventy-Six!”

“Abraham Lincoln Defends an Alleged Murderer
The occasion depicted in the Rockwell painting is the 1858 murder trial of an Illinois man named William “Duff” Armstrong. Armstrong was accused of murdering James Preston Metzker with a “slung-shot”—a weight tied to a leather thong, sort of an early blackjack—a few minutes before midnight of August 29, 1857. Lincoln was a friend of the accused man’s father, Jack Armstrong, who’d just died, and so he offered to help defend young Duff Armstrong, without pay, as a favor to Jack Armstrong’s widow.
The principal prosecution witness against Armstrong was a man named Charles Allen, who testified that he’d seen the murder from about 150 feet away. When Lincoln asked Allen how he could tell it was Armstrong given that it was the middle of the night and he was a considerable distance away from the murder scene, Allen replied, “By the light of the Moon.”
How Lincoln Used the Almanac
Upon hearing Allen’s testimony, Lincoln produced a copy of the 1857 edition, turned to the two calendar pages for August, and showed the jury that not only was the moon in the first quarter but it was riding “low” on the horizon, about to set, at the precise time of the murder. There would not have been enough light for Allen to identify Armstrong or anyone else, said Lincoln. The jury agreed, and Duff Armstrong was acquitted.”

Beyond Treason’s Harbor -Patrick O’brian
The reoccurring theme of this book as set during the Napoleonic Wars/The War of 1812 is the manner conduct and the nature of the generational intelligence wars between the British and the French and amongst and between the various British services as represented in Malta. At any time one is hard pressed to discern and tell who is representing who and what is what-why.
All disparate motives, intentions and the doubtful suspect allegiances of many eventually come into question and play throughout the tattletelling retelling of the story.
It is meant to be, and the novel’s narrative well documents and covers the confusion of espionage and counter-espionage at play during that historically significant era quite well.

Tremendous flash! and hark, the ball
Drives through old Yarmouth, flames and all;
Her bravest sons expire;
Did Mars himself approach so nigh,
Even Mars, without disgrace, might fly
The Randolph’s fiercer fire.

The Briton views his mangled crew;
“And shall we strike to Thirty-Two”
(Said Hector, stained with gore);
“Shall Britain’s flag to these descend–
Rise, and the glorious conflict end,
Britons, I ask no more!”

He spoke—they charged their cannon round,
Again the vaulted heavens resound,
The Randolph bore it all,
Then fixed her pointed cannons true–
Away the unwieldy vengeance flew;
Britain, the warriors fall.

The Yarmouth saw, with dire dismay,
Her wounded hull, shrouds shot away,
Her boldest heroes dead–
She saw amidst her floating slain
The conquering Randolph stem the main–
She saw, she turned, and fled!

That hour, blest chief, had she been thine,
Dear Biddle, had the powers divine
Been kind as thou wert brave;
But fate, who doomed thee to expire,
Prepared an arrow, tipped with fire,
And marked a watery grave,

And in that hour when conquest came
Winged at his ship a pointed flame
That not even He could shun–
The conquest ceased, the Yarmouth fled,
The bursting Randolph ruin spread,
And lost what honor won.

Steve
Pipe aboard all hands.
A Second Patrick O’Brian novel you might consider in prep for ROB is
The Far Side of the World -Patrick O’Brian

As ferocity, pyrrhic victories and stalemate in The War of 1812 continues on to an inevitable uncertain unwinnable conclusion , Jack Aubrey sets course for Cape Horn on an urgent mission that’s after his own heart: intercepting a powerful American frigate that’s outward bound to interfere and interdict British Commercial interests by attempting to dismast, disrupt and neuter their burgeoning whaling trade.
If they are unable and do not successfully neutralize this rascally American before she rounds the Horn, they are committed to and must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific wherever she may lead them. But Aubrey also has to cope with and address a series of disastrous events and regimens that overwhelms them in the Great South Sea and in the far reaches of the Pacific. Attending to while overcoming successive typhoons, storms, men overboard, castaways, encounters with savages, groundings, shipwrecks, murder, and criminal insanity is almost reason enough to reconsider and scuttle this mission even before it begins.
All these various and tenuous fine-tuned interwoven and compressed plot twists are deceptively self-contained between and within the pages of only one novel!
Just how remarkable is that!

Stand by to recover the “Jolly” Boat!
Another pertinent and recommended read in prep of Taylor’s ROB is
All Brave Sailors: The Sinking of the Anglo-Saxon, August 21, 1940
J. Revell Carr

Publishers Weekly citation
“In the war’s early days, the heavily armed German Raider Widder commonly disguised itself as a neutral Swedish freighter and pummeled unsuspecting enemy ships with massive artillery. On August 21, 1940, the victim of this remarkably effective (and much frowned upon) technique was the defenseless SS Anglo-Saxon, which came under attack off Africa’s western coast. What’s unique about this story is its aftermath: the German Raider Widder’s incredibly effective ambush method resulted in a fatality rate of 100% –
but not this time. Seven seamen were able to escape undetected on a tiny, meagerly provisioned “jolly boat.”
Their fate constitutes the utterly riveting heart of the book.”

When the grick party to South Africa was on his way to try and negotiate them to join the gricks they ran into a blizzard so I guess you could say it snows in South Africa at least in Taylors South Africa

Aren’t all of these inner workings of Cultural Incorporation
A sloppy messy interactive business after and before everything
And anything is messiah made and done.

A Brain Teether (Tether?) for you all to muse off and on about
Charles Darwin
The Voyage of the Beagle didn’t occur
On the Origin of Species (1859) wasn’t written
And the knowledge information transfer into
Taylor’s Destroyermen World didn’t happen

Inquery-Does evolution there even exist and how can it
be explained away if no one knows anything about it?
Now where did I put that copy of Thomas Aquinas’
Summa contra gentiles (SCG) at?https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin
“Charles Robert Darwin, was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors and, in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.”
Just giving a Neanderthal state of Art and Sciences Technology doesn’t
Immediately and automatically confer the wisdom and the understanding to use it.

There was a lot of insight into genetics both prior and post Darwin. My own guess is that had Charles Darwin not proposed the theory of natural selection being the driving force of change in species someone else would have.

Human evolution or lack thereof has been influenced by cultural evolution, the biggest change was from hunter gatherers to herders farmers IMO.

I agree, that someone else would clearly propose such theory around this time – after all, Wallace came to similar conclusions at exactly the same time – but Darwin not only suggested the theory of evolution, he popularized it greatly. His “On the Origin of Species” was very popular, easy to understood & quite persuasive.

Evolution The Grand Design mp3/Symphony X
My Friends:
Natural Selectionly Insightful, but traversing from the
“There and Then” to the new “Here and Now” isn’t just
sloppy and messy, it’s somewhat fraught with numerous
conundrums, inconsistencies and contradictions requiring
a Heraclean Thomas Moore leap of scientific faith to
adequately and satisfactorily explain them.
Doesn’t it just evolutionary follow that there is “way out there”
a conductor conducting.
New World Symphony- Dvorak
The Planets Symphony-Holtz
Kitty Hawk mp3- James Horner Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
March of the Bob Cats mp3/ BBC Big Band
Demon Kitty Rag mp3 / Katenjammer
The Kitty Kat Song mp3/ Lee Dorsey
Evolutionistically Yours mp3/ Jozef Gatysikhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isic2Z2e2xs

We knew too little about inner North America with the exception that it is inhabitated by some powers that were considered “pending problems” for NUS. And, frankly, such land journey of unprepared unit through unknown terrain would be… rather unpleasant. Especially under Destroyermens rather Death World conditions.

Agreed, seems to be a bit of a stretch for a cavalry unit. They weren’t really equipped to be away from civilization for more than a few weeks at a time at the most. Seems to me it would be more likely to either be another group of Native Americans, but this time a North American tribe or a group of settlers/homesteaders. Perhaps 49ers or maybe French-Canadian fur trappers. A group like the Souix would be interesting because both they and the NUS would have reason to be wary of one another.

I still support the idea of isolationistic high-tech civilization enclave somewhere in inner North America. This fit a lot of known facts quite good; both the “pending problem” of NUS and the reason why Dom’s decided to widhtraw from Mexico after first war with 1847 Americans.

How high tech are we talking though? I think getting in to scifi levels of tech is pushing it but a group with technology levels around discrete transistors would be interesting. Anything more would require such a long and diverse list of resources that I don’t think it’s possible to be isolationist. However North America in general and Canada in specific has a good reserve of rare earth metals so semi conductors could be in the cards.

Higher than avaliable for Dom & NUS for sure. Maybe higher, than League. Probably without the actual ability to sustain tech base (i.e. they could not reproduce their tech), but clearly dangerous enough for Doms to pull out of Mexico after the war with NUS (which they won, lets not forget. And then they suddenly depopulated the whole area and get out of such valuable region. The only reason I could think about is that they were afraid of some third side, which could potentially push in, and the only way of defense in Doms weakened state was to make this area valueless)

//. Anything more would require such a long and diverse list of resources that I don’t think it’s possible to be isolationist.//

What if they don’t need such a long and diverse list?

We are looking from standard position of industrial era; you need machines to make machines to make machines to make high-tech equipment. But what if we are talking about post-industrial someone? What if they have machines which could make anything, given sufficient raw materials?

We already have a good approximation of this technology in therms of additive manufacturing – commonly known as 3D printing. The 3D printers already could print machine parts, complicated equipment, even computer microchips. There are even project to develope a printer which could print all its parts (i.e. reproduce)!

What if we have small transfer group with 3D-printing technology on the level of, say, 50+ years from now? Do they need raw materials? Yes, but not in usual scale of “machines to make machines to make machines”; they need only enough, so their mega-3D printer could print nessesary final product. Do they need local workforce? Yes, but they don’t need to actually teach them anything, especially any scientific knowlege. They would be perfectly fine with having all knowlege for themselves, thus being “magical” elite over the commoners.

The other Destroyermen’s world societies could not do that. They are industrial-era societies, which means that they need a awful lot of trained workers & engineers – i.e. those who understood what exactly are they doing here. They could not do any other way.

But our hypotetical post-industrial group? They don’t need trained & educated locals; they don’t need industrial base outside of minimal, capable of providing power & resources for 3D-pringing equipment and other high-tech machinery. They don’t need engineers; they probably have engineering computer programs to make all calculations at least on basic level. So, they have no actual reason to NOT install themselves as sort-of “magocracy”, with transferers and their descendants as “magical” ruling elite, who have access to superior technology and knowlege, how it works and how to operate it. And local “commoners”, who live in ave of “magical powers” of elite.

With such society, the expansion is, actually, not needed. The relatively small demand of resources could be satisfied without need to push more. Also, the expansion is… problematic, because for large-scale expansion (for example, conquest of Dom’s and NUS, not to mention Imperial colonies) you need not only a small number of high-tech equipment – wich your commoner soldiers could NOT understood – but also large number of mid-tech and low-tech equipment, which they COULD understood.

For example; it you are bend on mantaining the high-tech magocracy, when only the small elite have actual understanding of scientific knowlege, you have reasons not to arm you commoner soldiers with automatic rifles. Such weapon could be understood, the basic principles of it could be deduced, and such weapon could be used against you.

But you HAVE the reasons to arm your commoner soldiers with Awesome But Impractical laser rifles. Why? Because such weapon would be truly “magical” for peoples without extensive scientific knowlege. Even if they tried, they simply would not be able to understood, exactly how the laser worked. They could not mantain, reproduce, or even recharge such weapon without your – high-tech elite – direct involvement. And you could easily make sure, that such weapon could not be used against you in case of rebellion or something; small built-in reciever which, after recieving coded command, would “magically” turn the weapon off, thus making sure that “blessed weapon could not be used against Chosen Ones!”

Problem is, while you probably could make (on your 3D-printing module) enough hand-held lasers to beat any Dom’s or NUS army that invaded your lands – just imagine the horror of Dom or NUS soldiers, if they suddenly started to be blown to bits or charred by BEAMS! – you hardly could build enough of them to actually took over Dominion or NUS. This would simply put too much strain on your limited 3D-printing capabilities, which are NOT well-suited for mass-production.

The same for other means, too, like communication. You could safely gave your commoner soldiers “magical” cellphones with cameras & screens that allow them to see with awe your blessed face. They could not possibly understood, how this things worked. But if you gave them something simple – like, crystal radio – they MAY eventually understood, that there isn’t anything magical here. And, if your power are based on your monopoly on “magic”, you clearly did not want for any commoners to understood anything of it.

I see where you are coming from. Alexei but I think introducing such a society would be “jumping the shark”. We have had a lot of factions introduced in the last few books and they still need development and conclusions to their story arcs. Adding more, especially one so advanced would complicate the story and I don’t think it would add much to the narrative Taylor is making. I know there are some who would love to have a super advanced faction appear and have the reasons for the portal explained but I don’t think we need that. The story is at its heart about Matthew Reddy and his crew overcoming the odds and thriving on this hostile world against numerous enemies. Things need to stay within the realm of believability. Adding in a group that has technology that exceeds our own goes a little too far I think.

And even if it happened, they wouldn’t cross over for another century or so – not without a time machine. Gotta queue up behind the LST en-route to Korea, the helos over Vietnam, and the Pattons in Iraq.

As noted we have story arcs enough. The new USA is not well know, nor is the League. We have little knowledge of the extent of ice sheets responsible for the lowering of sea levels. The interior of the continents is still a mystery, Terra incognita. We know the New USA has enemies on the North American continent, and that they know about the multiple worlds that have provided visitors, and that their US history is not the only one. The largest natural source of Cryolite needed to produce Aluminum is in Greenland and may well be under thick glaciers.

//The Squall jumps you minutes or hours into the future, not decades…//

Into the past, actually. Because time is flowing inside the Squall, and objects are delivered exactly on the corresponding location – not thrown into space or buried under Earth crust due to planet movement.

This does not affect casuality, because we are talking about parallel worlds; cause & effect arent in the same universe.

And if you have the ability to send objects a minute in the past, I see no reason why you could not send a hundred years.

The squall sounds more like a portal between universes than a time machine. Maybe it’s a wormhole? But Alexey’s right in that technological advances could be spurred by different events in different timelines. Only those close to ours would be limited to WW2 tech. Rome might not have fallen & they have interstellar capability by now, or the plagues & Mongol invasions destroyed European civilization & something entirely different comes through, the possibilities are endless.

//Into the past, actually. Because time is flowing inside the Squall, and objects are delivered exactly on the corresponding location – not thrown into space or buried under Earth crust due to planet movement.

This does not affect casuality, because we are talking about parallel worlds; cause & effect arent in the same universe.

And if you have the ability to send objects a minute in the past, I see no reason why you could not send a hundred years.//

As Lou said, it’s a portal (and bound to the surface of Earth at that). You enter the storm in 1760 or 1915 or 1942, you exit in 1760 or 1915 or 1942 some time later – that’s practically a rule by now.

Halik hasn’t bumped into Israeli tanks from the Six Day War for the same reasons; not only would that seriously mess with the existing story, but it hasn’t happened yet.

//But Alexey’s right in that technological advances could be spurred by different events in different timelines. Only those close to ours would be limited to WW2 tech. Rome might not have fallen & they have interstellar capability by now, or the plagues & Mongol invasions destroyed European civilization & something entirely different comes through, the possibilities are endless.//

Sure, but would their “frequency” get picked up by this Squall. Seems like transfers from the 1632-verse (which is what you’d need to get cell phones and laser rifles in colonial Utah) would get dumped out in another world.

Guys, “its a portal” means nothing, because what are the “portal” is not defined. If you means a wormhole, I must point out that wormholes could very easily connect points not in space (or inter-space, between the univerces), but in time as well.

Time & space aren’t two different things – they are basically different sides of the same continuum. You could not “transfer the “Walker” into the same moment”, because there is no absolute scale for time even within one universe, far less between universes. The “Walker” moved – time for her slowed by definition. I agree, on such relative velocities like between moving “Walker” and, say, more or less stationary Surabaya, time dilation differences are hardly noticeable, but it actually existed and even could be measured.

So, there is no such things as “just portals”. And exactly zero reason, why Squall couldn’t connect time points with more distance between them than milliseconds. Unless, of course, the Squall was PORGRAMMED NOT TO DO THAT.

//Sure, but would their “frequency” get picked up by this Squall. Seems like transfers from the 1632-verse (which is what you’d need to get cell phones and laser rifles in colonial Utah) would get dumped out in another world.//

First of all, we doesn’t know, is the “frequency” theory right or wrong.

Secondly, we already have fauna from different worlds, that diverged from each other MILLIONS of years ago. Mountain fishes, for example; they must came from far different world, in evolutionary therms, than Earth, because Earth biology simply could not allow creatures of such size to exist.

Thirdly, why you assumed that tech progress is some absolute scale? It isn’t; it is moved by wast combinations of factors. In the League’s roman origin world (where Roman Empire existed in X century), this combination would clearly be far different from our world. And some important discoveries could be done earlier, because different timeline led to different peoples being born and some inventors COULD came earlier.

So, no, Justin, I could not agree with you on this point. POTENTIALLY, the Squall could brought up basically anything. Its actual selectiveness depend on what programming it recieved, or what intelligence is controlling the Squall – but not on some “constant laws of the universe”. Because there aren’t such laws.

//The squall sounds more like a portal between universes than a time machine. Maybe it’s a wormhole? But Alexey’s right in that technological advances could be spurred by different events in different timelines. Only those close to ours would be limited to WW2 tech. Rome might not have fallen & they have interstellar capability by now, or the plagues & Mongol invasions destroyed European civilization & something entirely different comes through, the possibilities are endless.//

The Spanish galleons didn’t arrive last book, and Mizuki Maru didn’t arrive a hundred years ago; as far as we know, time is linear on both worlds.

Besides, since when did any ISOT make any scientific sense (or need to)? One moment, you’re somewhere, one moment later, you’re magically somewhere else, and we don’t need to know the mechanics because the Squall is a MacGuffin – with new factions introduced at the speed of plot – and the REAL story marches on with or without it.

//In the League’s roman origin world (where Roman Empire existed in X century), this combination would clearly be far different from our world. And some important discoveries could be done earlier, because different timeline led to different peoples being born and some inventors COULD came earlier.//

AFAIK, the Republic timeline and the League timeline aren’t the same thing.

Absolutely. Yet butterflies only go so far – you’d need to get enough PODs for 2020-era tech centuries early, AND enough PODs for them to settle in the middle of nowhere (which was what the Midwest was back then, and arguably still is).

The only argument I have against Alexey’s X Century Romans diversion point being no different from a tech base with 3D Printing is this (and it does kind of support Courtney’s “frequency” theory). Consider–Even if it was a X Century Imperial (IE Western) Rome, it could’ve been floundering badly. It could also have been an Eastern “Rome” that maintained connection and traditions longer. Almost nothing is known of that other than what Garrett (Who’s admittedly no historian)suspects, and some few organizational/naming conventions hints. Courtney may have a better idea, but he spent most of his time figuring out the Gentaa–and he’s . . . different now anyway, with different priorities. He may have even figured EVERYTHING out by now, but without Matt to talk to, hasn’t spilled. The main point, however, is that OUR X Century timeline might not have been tremendously different from a weak, declining, X Century Rome timeline–compared to a fascist Europe timeline–and the X Century (or thereabouts) was when the transfer would’ve taken place, not after further centuries of diversion.
And, of course, maybe Alexander didn’t croak and Macedonian hegemony lasted longer, as a greater competitor to Rome than it was. Again, possibilities are endless. My bet is, prior to X Century, there would’ve been few changes in weapons and warfare regardless. Maybe Alexander slapped his forehead and came up with stirrups. Think how dominant Macedonian cavalry would’ve been then?
There’s a world-changer for you, Matthieu: Whoever it was who came up with stirrups–or whoever slapped their forehead and came up with the pan-covering frizzen (English) flintlock, rendering all previous, overly complicated firelocks obsolete. Hey! The socket bayonet! All sorts of little improvements that we take for granted had utterly profound effects, and were usually cooked up by some nameless dude, forgotten by time.

Boy, you fellows were hammering the keyboards last night. For all the thoughts of tecnology transfer, though, it’d be interesting to see how some of the natives of this world create technological progress, instead of just having it handed to them.

Well, in a couple of books or so, we have the opportunity to take on board those Avengers lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Get the NUS busy building an Guantanamo airfield for Fleashooters, and berthing space for Nancy/Buzzard/Clipper patrols, and they’ll have someplace to land. Not to mention, the Alliance gets some modern attack craft and more modern technology to copy. From Fred and Kari’s discoveries, we know there have been recent transfers in the Caribbean.

Can’t remember when we had that discussion, but the consensus was that due to the “no real people” rule, they can’t be the same Flight 19 (Flight 18? 20?). Same reason Amelia Earhart wasn’t on Yap back in Rising Tides.

Yeah, and I recently had to add an anti-spam service. Don called about this–and I got his voicemail a couple of days later–(I was away from phone service, dealing with rhino pigs with the .50-95)–but then it just went away! Don, sorry, but I just got a new phone too (I HATE new phones) and lost your number to call you back. Give me a shout if you like. Oh, and since I’m answering this on a different computer, I’ll bet a different booger comes up. Ain’t technology wonderful?

I wonder if there’s any lost expeditions roaming around the Congo? Probably not… but if the Union and/or Republic bump into several pith-helmeted Victorians riding a pack of Baryonyx, I damn well called it.

Hmmm, wonder if there’s a race of tree-swinging Grik-likes in the Heart of Darkest Africa. Or maybe cargo-cult workshipers, in thrall to a Trans-Africa air racer lost in the 30’s, French-speaking to boot.

Speaking of natural wonders, all that glacial meltwater probably means colossal waterfalls up in Washington and Montana. For example, Dry Falls was twice as high and five times wider than Niagara – the Imperials really should think about putting that on the travel guide.

Thinking about the power of falling water; another possibility for Baalkpaan industry after the war; hydropower. Lemurians supposedly are great pump designers, they’ve got generators knocked, and they’ve got great bracing designs. Not to mention, irrigation pumps and farm machinery for Austraal.

Then, of course, that could segue into lock-building up the Zambezi with labor from the Free Grik Empire, into the heart of Darkest Africa. That’s probably about Book 21m I’d guess…

It’d be a pretty awesome sight, I think, watching the tides at the Pass del Fuego. Water draining out at both ends as the tide passes & then the surge when the tide comes back in. Depending on the width of the pass & shape of the entrance, you could have a wall of water over 100′ high coming in. It’d be like watching some sort of cosmic or biblical event each day. Make a hell of an artistic subject. Any ships IN the pass would be toast & the ships heading west had best be in a hurry after the initial bore fills the pass or they might not make it by the ebb & get caught in the pass when the next tide starts pulling water. They’d have to start well outside to be safe from the initial surge & probably only go with a good wind. How they get ships through going east would be an interesting problem. Figuring 60-100 miles of Pass, plus say a 10 mile safety zone & time for the initial surge to settle, the Dom ships would have to cover 70-110 miles in 10-11 hours. Heading east, the liners would probably need assistance from a high speed tug to make it through in time.

It’s right on the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica – about 200km long (125 miles) – but it’s also 30km wide, and there’s cities right on the coast, so it can’t be any more cataclysmic than a giant flash flood or the tide at Talbot Bay.

As for crossing, don’t forget that they’d be going with the tide; the real problem seems to be navigating the currents and clearing the strait before the back-surge kicks in. Anson also notes that there’s a bay halfway through for the ships that won’t make it in time.

Yeah, saw that map & those bays on the north side would be great for concentrating a tidal surge, especially the first one, La Calma. The cities in the pass are probably set back some distance from the shore & their harbors would have some bodacious breakwaters to protect them.

You’d be going with the tide whichever way you went, but the liners are slow enough, they might need help getting through before the tide swings the other way. I’d suppose it would depend on how deep the pass was as to how dramatic it would be. Maybe Taylor will let us know in some future book.

Using your figures then NO ship can make it in one tide. They will have 6 hours of tidal current in one direction then 6 hours in the other direction. if the tidal current is 6 knots and the ship can add another 6 knots then they can only go 72 knotical miles per tide. this means at least 2 tides or 3 tides per trek with an anchorage parking at the change of tide. This translates into at least a day and a half minimum. I do not feel that there will be a tidal bore problem as the tides themselves will scour the bottoms of the passage.

Looking at the map again, I still think there would be a respectable tidal bore going into the pass. The bay on the eastern side would cup the flow into the pass. There might even be some sort of standing wave there while the tide is coming in. I’ve seen something like that in bay & harbor entrances before. If an asteroid did hit there, there would probably be a significant depth change also. Looks like something took a bite out of Nicaragua between Monkey Point & San Juan del Norte & the bay at La Calma might be what’s left of Lake Nicaragua.
As far as scouring out the pass, it depends on how long it’s been there & how deep the bedrock is.

OK, I’ve been checking out tidal bores & while most are not too dramatic, dangerous but not dramatic, some can get surreal. The “Silver Dragon” is a tidal bore on the Qiantang river in the city of Hangzhou China. Showing how land shape can change a regular tide into something spectacular. Several other videos out there, like the Bono in Indonesia.

There seems to be one big semi-concentric hole where Bluefields would’ve been – that might be it. Still, even an asteroid-sized depth charge wouldn’t’ve cut a near-straight channel through a continent, nor triggered volcanoes.

Central America formed in the first place when the Cocos and Caribbean plates collided and cut off the Central American Seaway. Perhaps they’re now sliding or drifting apart for some reason.

An asteroid strike could trigger local volcanoes, if they were anywhere near erupting, local fault lines also. I could see it opening things up to Lake Nicaragua, but as you say, not all the way. The fault lines & plates may be slightly different in that world & with most of the volcanoes on the western side of the country, a large caldera collapse near the coast might finish the job.

Or, an asteroid strike may have shifted things enough that the Central American Seaway never closed completely & is just now in the process of closing.

would it be possible to put a lock system in El Paso del Fuego, like put in a cofferdam on one side of the pass, then after it’s finished, put one on the other side? Do this at both ends, then during slack tide, fill in the gap between them? do this in sections at a time. I’m no hydraulic engineer, so I have little experience with the pressures and flows on such a project.

…With 1960+ level of technology – probably. Still I doubt that such procedures could really be made without land-moving nukes (offtop, I know, but USSR used almost 200 nuclear charges in peaceful programs – land moving, large-scale engineering projects, geophysical research, putting out the catastrophic fires on the oil & gas deposits… Small-scale nukes could be really useful for engineering, if you use them properly.)

The canal system depends on reservoirs to provide water to raise the level in the locks that goes down hill. The area is earthquake and volcanically active, bad news for reservoirs, well the dams at least 😉